taxonomites | 001: The Bold People of War Have Raised Their Swords [Holo]

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001: The Bold People of War Have Raised Their Swords [Holo]

When Leela regained consciousness, she was no longer in the Inquisitor General’s room of pitiless machines and cruel technology. She did not know where she was, only that it was silent and cold and her head ached ferociously. For a moment, there was nothing to hear but her breathing.

When she pushed herself unsteadily to her feet, the ground beneath her palm was clearly metal. A prison, then. It could only be a prison. That other Leela – who was more of a savage than she had ever been, for all her power and status – was not finished with her yet. She had already taken her memories, but she wanted to keep her alternative self alive in case she could provide anything else of use.

“You can do what you like to me,” Leela growled, addressing the unseen figure that she felt sure would be watching. Her hands bunched furiously into fists. She wished that the Gallifreyan soldiers had not thought to remove her knife from her belt. She would certainly need it before the day was out. “I would rather die a thousand deaths than help you.”

“Mistress?”

“K-9?” She had been expecting a reply, yes, but she had expected it to come, cruel and gloating, from her other self. Not from a friend. Leela stilled, torn between delight and confusion. “I thought you had stayed on the Axis with Braxiatel. Are you here to rescue me?”

“Negative, Mistress.”

“… you mean you are not here to rescue me?”

He was inside the cell with her. She did not need her eyes to be certain of that. She could hear the familiar whir of his machinery as he crossed the metal floor. Why else would he be here? Unless …

“Oh, K-9.” She shook her head, bitter disappointment swiftly extinguishing the flames of hope that had started to flicker in her chest. “You have been captured as well!”

“Affirmative, Mistress.”

“Then we will have to escape together,” she said, simply. They had no other option, after all. “I will need you to be my eyes. Where are we?”

“Insufficient data.”

“Insufficient data!” Leela repeated incredulously, “K-9! You know the Capitol as well as I do. This Gallifrey may be different to our Gallifrey, but it not so different that we cannot find our way through these treacherous halls.”

“Scans suggest that we are no longer on Gallifrey, Mistress. Our present whereabouts do not match any known space-time coordinates.”

If she had been a different sort of person, she would have been frightened to hear such words from someone who only ever told her the truth. But she was not wise. She was not wise enough to know what that meant and, at the moment, she was wholly focused on getting back to her friends. She was scared – truly, genuinely, sickly scared – of what the Inquisitor General would do to Narvin when she found him and what the other Romana would do to her Romana if she was given the chance. They needed her warnings and they needed her help.

“I don’t care where we are. I am not going to let that … that other Leela use the memories she took from me. My knife will find her throat before she has a chance to find Narvin. We are going to get back to our friends.”

“Insufficient data.”

OOC: For the sake of my sanity and because of exam related chaos, Leela and K-9 are reentering the city. The threads from her last entry post are being carried forward, but feel free to tag in if you didn't have a chance to greet her last time.

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OOC: Continued from here (http://taxonomites.livejournal.com/480901.html?thread=29418117#t29418117).

"It is not gone," said Leela, vehemently. She had no loyalty to the planet itself, but she was loyal to many of the people who had lived and died there. "And it will not be lost while there are people left who will fight for it."

People like her. People like Romana and Braxiatel and Narvin.

From Leela's perspective, the difference was not entirely obvious. At the time, the war against the Pandora had seemed great indeed. It had cost Leela her eyes and it had claimed the lives of many Time Lords on both side. The Time War was nothing more than a rumour on the edge of the universe.

"How did your father escape the Dog ..."

"Dogma, mistress."

"... the Dogma virus?"

OOC: Continued from here (http://taxonomites.livejournal.com/480901.html?thread=29566853#t29566853).

“You started to fit it when we fought a war together. And I was not threatening them. I don’t have my knife any more.” She felt the absence of the familiar weight at her belt – a good knife that she had carried with her through many battles – as keenly as she felt the absence of her sight. “And it is that other Leela I need to kill, not anyone else. How did she send us here? Why did she send us here?”

She had a great many questions and only Narvin to answer them. Which meant that she would not get the straight answer that she was seeking.

“Have you, K-9?”

“Negative, Mistress. Scanners are unable to obtain an accurate reading.”

OOC: Continued from here (http://taxonomites.livejournal.com/480901.html?thread=29416325#t29416325).

“You don’t want to help?” Leela asked, genuinely perplexed. She had accepted the situation, but the warrior could not understand why someone – even someone as difficult as her new acquaintance – would not want to fight against it. “If we stand together, they will have to listen.”

It was not quite as simple as that – life was never simple – but Leela still believed that they could achieve a great deal if they worked together. She was not wise, but she knew that much.

It wasn't that he didn't want to fight--hell, he'd have been more than happy to. It was just that he'd seen enough of futile efforts to exhaust himself trying when he knew that it wouldn't make a difference. Bide his time, find the weakness, and strike. He was old enough to have learned patience to temper the brashness that had marked him before.

"Go ahead, princess. Try. Not everyone here is inclined to play nicely. And they're even less likely to listen to the new kid, regardless of how much or little sense you're making."

"Do not call me 'princess'," she growled, which suggested that she was one of those who would not play nicely with those who pushed her. It was common sense. They would be fools not to listen to her and, although she was used to dealing with fools, she would need some allies to do so. There had to be someone in this prison who thought as she did. "My name is Leela."

"Your name isn't exactly important, princess." If she wanted to play that game, he could play right back, putting just as much danger in his voice as she had in hers. He'd had centuries to practice the art of dangerous words, and he'd gotten good at navigating them. He had to if he wanted to survive.

"It is important to me," she retorted. She remembered when her name had been all that she had to cling on to, a savage warrior in a world impossibly different from her own. "If we are prisoners, then we must remember who we are and where we are from. We should not forget why we are fighting."

Sure, there was that whole "names have power" thing that was actually true, but that was entirely beside the point. Corwin just shrugged, not even gracing her retort with a frustrated sigh.

"Lady, no one here forgets where they're from or why they're not actually fighting unless the aliens start screwing with their heads. Which isn't actually all that uncommon, so I'd just resign myself to it right now if I were you."

"Screwing with their heads?" repeated Leela, struggling to understand the idiom. It was not one that they used on Gallifrey or that they used among the Sevateem. "I do not understand."

Was it another trick from a man who was so clearly a trickster? She needed answers, not more games.

"Messing around. Changing the landscape. Altering the people." Somehow, he'd managed to dodge that bullet so far, but he couldn't help but feel that he was only tempting fate. It was only a mtter of time before something horrible happened to him that he was powerless to fight let alone prevent.

"I'd watch out if I were you. Try not to piss off the aliens too much."

"They are more powerful than I thought," Leela admitted and, for the first time, she accepted that the fight to return to Gallifrey could be a long and difficult one. "But they are not the first aliens I have dealt with. I am not afraid."

"How wonderful for you. You'll be right at home then." Something in his voice made it seem like that wasn't exactly a great thing, that it was the wrong choice to be comfortable in this place. But then, he had never taken kindly to being caged. Four years of it was more than enough, and now...even if it was a big cage, it was still a terrible feeling.

Though their conversation had earned Corwin her grudging respect, Leela made no attempt to hide her dislike when she replied. She did not like being mocked. She was proud and, besides, she had spent too many years being treated poorly by the Time Lords to ignore him.

"Do you treat this as a game because you are afraid?"

That irked him. He wasn't afraid of anything so entirely...asinine. This place wasn't something to be afraid of--hell, he'd seen places far scarier than this, and he didn't have the luxury of being afrain then, like hell he was going to succumb to something so entirely pointless now.

"No, princess. I treat this as a game because that's what it is."

Despite the use of her new nickname, which she detested almost as much as she detested the word 'savage', Leela smiled at his comment. She had finally found a way to push him.

"It is only a game if we allow ourselves to be toyed with."

"Good luck with that. If you figure out how to break out of that little slot marked 'toy,' I trust you'll share with the rest of the class." Probably not--and he couldn't really blame her if she ended up keeping the information to herself, seeing as the "every man for himself" mentality had been his for a long time.

"I will," she vowed fiercely, "I would not want to leave anyone behind, whether they deserve my help or not."

Her pointed tone made it clear that she did not believe that Corwin deserved her help.

He didn't miss that tone, even smiled at it. How refreshing. Still some fight left in this one.

"How noble of you, princess. I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself."

Leela would never lose her desire to fight. If she did, she would not only stop being a warrior, she would stop being Leela. It was a key part of her.

"And yet I will come to your rescue when you need it," she said, "Those who do not think they need help often need it most of all."

Like Narvin. He was too stubborn ever to ask for it, but she was going to save him - save him from herself - if it cost her life to do so.

"How noble of you." But it was still better than anything he could say that he would do. As far as he was concerned, once they'd said "no," it was their own damn fault if they died for it.

"I wonder how long that will last."

Although there were times when Leela's patience wore thin, she was new enough to remain strong and principled. Imprisonment had yet to damage her sense of honour.

Perhaps, in time, that would change.

"Long enough, I promise you."

Right. Fit girl threatening to cut throats. Talking robot dog thing. Mention of Gallifrey and Narvin.

Wisely (he thought) Fitz let others handle Taxon-related before broaching a subject which might be relevant to her interests.

"Say. You wouldn't happen to know a bloke who calls himself 'the Doctor,' would you?"

Although Leela could not see - and certainly did not understand - the strange device that she had found in her new prison, K-9 gave her the instructions she needed to clumsily lock the feed. If the robotic dog thought that it was necessary, then it was necessary. She was not afraid, but it would not hurt to be cautious. Not here.

"The Doctor?" she repeated, when it was safe to reply, "The Doctor is here?"

The real Doctor - her Doctor - and not the strange Lord Burner of that other Gallifrey?

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001: The Bold People of War Have Raised Their Swords [Holo]

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[Visual] ...or, you know, I could check my flist before I say things

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[visual / locked] ...sup

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